


Stenzas of love and ashes

by morporkian_hobbit



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Poetry, Sonnet, and then i write three poems about mormor in one afternoon, but in a poetic way i guess, mention of violence, mormor, sometimes i don't write poetry for two years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 08:07:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21096176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morporkian_hobbit/pseuds/morporkian_hobbit
Summary: A collection of MorMor poems.





	1. The Magpie and the Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t written poetry in ages and I kind of missed it. Then suddenly life handed me a bunch of lemons (i.e MorMor related inspiration) so I decided to make some lemonade (i.e MorMor inspired poems). 
> 
> The first one was written about two years ago, the others are recent works.

Iron claws on my broken heart, 

Protecting me from the world outside;

White fangs and black stripes,

A shield and a cage at the same time.

I have to burn the world

To keep it from destroying me.

I have to kill their freedom

Because I can never be free.

Then a lightning struck my life:

Black and white feathers and red blood;

The blood of all the fools who tried

To cage the clever bird.

Jim, will you fix it for me?

The world is wrong and people cry.

Jim, please will you fix me?

I only break the world so it can match my shattered heart.

I am not the only monster,

I am not the dangerous shadow,

I am not the one you should fear:

He flies so high, I run below.

Two broken men who fixed each other;

We don’t need the world anymore:

It’s just a playground, a card deck, a chess board,

A sad bunch of puppets that we’ll burn to the core.


	2. Scents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This poem happened after I spent an afternoon filming a school project in a cigarette-reeked cellar and drinking cold coffee.   
I tried to write a traditional Shakespearean sonnet, but iambic pentameter wasn't working for me, so I switched to octosyllable.

A coffee stain, a blood splatter,

The scent of ashes and iron,

Cigarette butts and gunpowder,

After his passage linger on.

The scent of violence clings to him,

Accompanies his every move.

A scar that makes his smile look grim;

A stain that time cannot remove.

The black coffee and acrid smoke

Can never completely revoke

The scent of lives he spilled away,

For fire burns forevermore.

It leaves a soul all scarred and sore,

Stained by the blood it had to pay.


	3. Untitled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of inspiration from Starset in this one. To be honest, all of their songs make me think of MorMor.

All my life I have lived in the darkest of nights,

Skies of black ink swirling around thick purple clouds.

Only a single flame in my heart cast a light,

Barely living, smothered by mist and fog in shrouds.

But you, you burn brighter than the whole starlit sky;

A black star that consumes all that stands in its path;

You share your warmth and light with all that can stand nigh,

If it survives being burned away by your wrath

You lit my flame anew as I stood in embers

Of the night that you burned and the chains that you charred.

With my heart rekindled, now I light the pyres

Of the world that has left my soul all bruised and scarred.

Now I stand tall and proud, and I follow your light,

Setting ablaze every fool who stands in your way.

I’m a brazier that fell in love with starlight,

With a supernova burning brighter than day.


	4. Untitled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This poem is meant to be from Jim's point of view, but it works either way. I usually have a pretty hard time getting inside Jim's head to write.

Hand in hand we shall go, or go nowhere at all.

If you must lead, then I shall follow your footfall,

Or walk in front of you, shielding you from all harm.

But if we can, I want us to walk arm in arm;

For near you is the only place where I belong,

The only home I need, the warmth for which I long;

For I know that my lips against yours have their place,

And my eyes’ only need is the sight of your face.

Your scars I have made mine, your sorrows I have borne,

And I shall burn the world that has left you so torn.

We shall stand together in the world that we built,

Hand in hand, walking through the remains of their guilt.


	5. Of scents and colours

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is written in prose, so I'm not sure if it counts as poetry. It was a draft/warmup I did before writing the first sonnet, but it sounds nice so I figured I'd post it too.

The scent follows him everywhere. It’s coffee and cigarettes and cold metal. Roasted beans burnt by boiling water, a string of white vapor floating through the cold crisp morning air, intertwining with the red and grey ash and the acrid smoke that clings to clothes and furniture, never completely fading away. The metallic smell of blood lingers on even long after the red liquid has dried and crumbled away. Like blood on a hand or a soul it can never completely be cleaned. A hot drink mixed with rough and bitter powder burning through the tongue and the throat, leaving only the nose to smell its taste. A hot smoke invading sinuses and stinging the skin, acrid smell soaking all things it touches. Two poisons mixing into a careful alchemy, sipping into his blood and streaming though his veins, infiltrating every inch of his body and his soul.

The poisoned blood is his own, the one that soaks his hands is from others. It is the phantom of bright red stains, vermillion droplets falling onto his tanned skin and clinging to his clothes. The clothes can be washed, or they can be burned if the scarlet accusations refuse to quiet down and go away. The hands cannot be washed thoroughly, nor can the soul that has been burnt by blood spilled and gunpowder and violence. Yet despite the burns and the cuts and the bruises, the body works still, the soul carries on, the mind doesn’t mind, it is only made stronger, like iron plunged into the fire of wars and into deep and cold abysses.

The smell of metal is there in the smoke, filling the air with its discreet but ever-present violence. The blood iron and the gunpowder are indiscernible now, and maybe always were, as if the fuel of war had always been running in his veins. It tints his skin and is part of him. It has stained his eyes and his hair, marking him with touches of grey, giving him a cold and hard look that may or may not be a reflection of what his heart feels like.

Calloused, eternally blood-stained hands carry a burning fag to bruised, red and purple lips. Long and precise fingers play with the cigarette, and tap the ashes away. Light steel-blue eyes half hidden under heavy eyelids follow the dull grey flakes as they fall away to the ground, like they have watched so many grey, lifeless bodies do. They don’t care anymore, or maybe they do care, too much, maybe they are in fact a deep wound in which sadness has bubbled and boiled up until it has become anger, a rage barely contained but still well hidden.

When the familiar cigarette isn’t there, sometimes his thin lips stretch into a smile, but his eyes don’t. They remain cold and calm, the grey steel in his gaze grows harder, and all those who have seen that smile know that real steel is preferable to whatever pain and torment those eyes are promising. The smile turns into a grin, not that of a man but that of a tiger, or a shark, with too many teeth, a smile that tells you it has already tasted blood and wouldn’t mind tasting it once more.

Sometimes his eyes smile too. The hard gaze softens, the corners of the mouth twitch up, amused, and you could almost forget the violent beast inside. Almost. The only man who is allowed to see the tiger turn into a cub does not forget. But in these moments, the violence quiets down, the blood stops boiling and the iron shines under a warm light, and even the most war-like soul is allowed some peace.


End file.
